World Of Animated Films Changing Rapidly

June 24, 2001|The New York Times

The explosive success of the computer-animated Shrek, which opened in mid-May and has become the biggest hit of the summer season so far, has reinforced the common wisdom in Hollywood that audience tastes have been shifting from more traditional animated films like the Walt Disney classics toward computer-generated animation.

But there is a growing minority sentiment that what is happening is actually much more subtle and revolutionary. The lines are blurring, not merely between computer-animated and traditionally animated films but also between animated films and live-action films.

"I certainly think that's true, and that a few years down the road we wouldn't even be having this conversation," said Don Hahn, a veteran Disney producer whose credits include Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Lion King (1994), Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and this summer's Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

"Just look at a movie like The Mummy Returns this summer," Hahn said. "There are a whole lot of sequences in that movie that are essentially animated. And the same is true for the latest of the Star Wars films. What's an animated film, and what's not?"

At the same time, traditionally animated films such as Atlantis, with the two-dimensional look of the classic Disney features, are including more and more computer-generated elements. And while the current crop of computer-animated films includes some, like Shrek and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, scheduled for release on July 13, that flirt in part with the notion of photorealistic animation, the next generation of computer-animated films, which are still on the drawing boards, is taking a radically different course.

"A lot of the work that's being done now is moving away from photo-realism and toward a more impressionistic approach, trying to capture some of the warmth of traditionally animated images," Hahn said.

Audiences are always eager to see new things, he said, and that is no doubt part of the reason for the recent success of computer-animated projects. But once audiences become used to the harder-edged, three-dimensional look of computer animation, will they find themselves yearning for the warmer feel of traditional animation? "I believe they will," Hahn said.

"It's an exciting time, a time when the whole animation world is changing," Hahn said.